This weekend my public library hosted a culinary event, Read It and Eat. I wasn't able to attend last year, so I was excited to go hear speakers both local and National talk about the Midwestern food scene. It was wonderfully presented and very well attended and they managed to pack quite a lot in to four hours on a beautiful fall afternoon.

I tried very hard not to be tempted by the books on sale and vowed to leave with just a good experience and hopefully some new stories and interesting knowledge but as you will see below I caved in and left with a new book. A little memento and one I can enjoy now to prolong the experience, right?

Summer Miller has children and so is very practical to her approach when it comes to food and cooking. If there is one thing I took away from the afternoon it is that each speaker noted that while the food experience is important, the whole foodie movement should be less about the meal than the fact it is food that is bringing people together--friends, families and communities. Several speakers mentioned that when it comes to cooking that failing is okay, too, and it is the idea that the less important than the conversations we have with each other over a good meal. Of course all the things you would expect--local food, good food is important.

I also found it interesting (and very true) that modern society has forgotten what real food actually tastes like. So much of what we eat is pre-packaged and doesn't always use natural ingredients. You might see picture of blueberries on a yogurt container and the color is blue, but that it isn't always actual blueberries you are eating. If you tasted it without seeing a label you might only get the sense of sweetness rather than whatever fruit it is pretending to be. We are losing something when we choose to eat at chain restaurants. It might be comforting to know you can walk into whichever fast food place you choose in any US state and the food will be uniform, but well, the food will be uniform. We have created a taste that isn't made from ingredients that are locally grown and picked in season, and I think this is very true. Of course I am not saying it anywhere near as eloquently as any of the speakers did, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

There was lots of sampling throughout the day made by local chefs. I am not much of a meat eater, but I did sample the Kolaches and, yes, they were delicious.

A local chef who is also an instructor in culinary arts at a local community college spoke about the history of Midwestern cooking, which was, of course, fascinating. It was a lively and entertaining discussion.

Another local chef gave a demonstration on how to break down a whole chicken (which I admit I have never done and may never have a chance to do). He made it look so simple, and I suspect that with a little experience it is pretty simple. Again he reiterated that it is not just the food, but that some of the most memorable meals he has had with friends were at least as much (and likely were more so) about the conversation than what they were eating. It isn't the food so much (and it is okay to have failures in the kitchen!) but the fact that it is a good meal that brings us together.

I've seen J. Ryan Stradal's Kitchens of the Great Midwest around, but I had not gotten a chance to pick it up and take a good look at it. He was such a good speaker and the reading he gave blew me away (and was so funny) that I had to buy the book. You can tell he writes from the heart. His mother, who passed away before his book was published, was such an inspiration to him that you get a real sense of what she meant to him in the excerpt he read.

Part of the book's blurb reads: "showing the ways in which food provides us with both comfort and community, Kitchens of the Great Midwest is by turns quirky, hilarious, and heartbreaking. This is a novel about one girl's extraordinary farm-to-table success story, about mothers and daughters, how food becomes the common language of our lives, and the bittersweet nature of life itself--its missed opportunities and joyful surprises."

Sounds good, doesn't it? It falls in perfectly with the day's theme. Stradal lives in LA now, but he is originally from Minnesota and I envy him the research he did while writing the book (much of it involving sampling the food landscape of the midwest). I can't wait to read it! Wouldn't it be fun to "eat along" with the book? Eat the foods the characters are eating or cooking? But I might have to give Lutefisk (the title of the book's first chapter) a pass.

My, how time flies. Remember this post? Probably not and that's okay. I am almost too embarrassed to mention it since I wrote it at the end of 2012. Maybe we could almost call it 2013 and then it wouldn't seem as though so much time has passed. I am always so full of plans, aren't I?

Since this year is supposed to be all about reading from my own shelves and this piles of lovely little Penguins happens to be sitting out and in my daily line of sight, I was thinking maybe it was time to revamp my plans to read through the Penguin Great Food series of books. What initially prompted it all was reading Agnes Jekyll's A Little Dinner Before the Play, which is a series of columns she wrote for The Times in the 1920s. I really liked it and knew I had to have the whole set, which I then set about acquiring. And they have been sitting, waiting and staring at me ever since.

They are slender little volumes, gorgeously designed--usually selections from larger, longer works, so just the perfect length for a taste--literally and figuratively. A taste of each author's writing and an (imagined) taste of various cuisines from different cultures and at different periods in history. All in all a perfect sampling of writing for a perfect little reading project.

It sounded good at the time and it still sounds pretty good now. I think my error was trying to put them in some sort of order and then read them in said order. I was stuck on the first book--just wasn't quite what I wanted at the moment and so it languished, was set aside and sort of forgotten. But I have decided to give it another go. This time, however, I will choose the books on whim and desire--who cares which order. And I have started with an author I hugely admire--M.F.K. Fisher.

I read and loved her Gastronomical Me. She is not only a most impressive author, but a woman of culture and panache. And while my own palate is pretty unstudied and unsophisticated, I can still love her writing and the things she writes about. I might not be tempted by all the dishes she writes about, but I certainly can appreciate how she writes about them. Maybe I will even read more of her work this year (because after I read her I had to have as much of her other writing as I could get my hands on . . . you know how that goes). But I am starting with the Penguin book, Love in a Dish and Other Pieces, which is a series of culinary essays.

I've read the first essay and am into the second. In it she writes about traveling by train with her uncle from California to Chicago in 1927. I think she must have surely been influenced a little by him. He was a seasoned train traveler and knew how to navigate the system, especially the dining car. When presented with the choice of dishes, she responds with an "I don't really care" and is gently castigated. He tells her she should never reply in such a manner since it is stupid, which she is not.

"It implies that the intentions of your host are basically wasted on you. So make up your mind, before you open your mouth. Let him believe, even if it is a lie, that you would infinitely prefer the exotic wild asparagus to the banal mushrooms, or vice versa. Let him feel that it matter to you . . . and even that he does!"

"'All this', my uncle added gently, 'may someday teach you about the art of seduction, as well as the more important art of knowing yourself'."

The other bit of wisdom from her uncle Evan--"The only test of a good breakfast place is its baked apple". I wonder if you can use that test still these days?!

Other books in the series (and in no particular order to be read):

**The Well Kept Kitchen by Gervase Markham**The Joys of Excess by Samuel Pepys (based on Pepys' diaries)**Everlasting Syllabub and the Art of Carving by Hannah Glasse**Recipes from the White Hart Inn by William Verrall**The Pleasures of the Table by Brillat-Savarin**The Elegant Economist by Eliza Acton**The Chef at War by Alexis Soyer**The Campaign for Domestic Happiness by Isabella Beeton**From Absinthe to Zest by Alexandre Dumas**Notes from Madras by Colonel Wyvern**Buffalo Cake and Indian Pudding by Dr. A.W. Chase**A Dissertation Upon Roasting a Pig and Other Essays by Charles Lamb**Exciting Food for Southern Types by Pellegrino Artusi**A Little Dinner Before the Play by Agnes Jekyll**Love in a Dish and Other Pieces by M.F.K. Fisher**A Taste of the Sun by Elizabeth David**Murder in the Kitchen by Alice B. Toklas**A Middle Eastern Feast by Claudia Roden**Eating with the Pilgrims and Other Pieces by Calvin Trillin (essays appearing mostly in The New Yorker)**Recipes & Lessons from A Delicious Cooking Revolution by Alice Water

I've finally found a little time to organize and think about my lovely set of Penguin Great Food books. Now that I've got several longish reads behind me I think I'm ready to begin my next reading project. The set consists of twenty slim volumes spanning some four hundred years of domestic life and cookery. I have tried to put them into a loose chronological order. A few volumes are made up of essays published over a number of years so I had to fudge a little bit, but I think I've got them more or less listed by publication date. I've decided to start at the beginning and moving through time to see how food, kitchens, domestic life, and social history in general (it's amazing what you can learn from books like these) has changed over time. If I find myself bogged down, however, don't be surprised if I throw all caution to the wind and choose randomly.

This is a project with no set rules, and I'm in no hurry to read through these. Most of the books are about 100 or so pages and the longest appears to be just under 150 pages, so they should read relatively fast--depending of course on whether or not I get sidetracked by something I read and want to veer off the trail a bit. It would be great fun to try a recipe from each book, though I make no promises (I have yet to try to make anything from A Little Dinner Before the Play, but there were several that I might just be able to attempt). I've even got a tab at the top of the page all ready to go and will start filling up the page with links and quotes and (hopefully) pictures of my own cooking attempts, as well posts about each book.

The order I've come up with:

The Well Kept Kitchen by Gervase Markham, 1615

The Joys of Excess by Samuel Pepys, 1660-1669 (based on Pepys' diaries)

Everlasting Syllabub and the Art of Carving by Hannah Glasse, 1747

Recipes from the White Hart Inn by William Verrall, 1759

The Pleasures of the Table by Brillat-Savarin, 1825

The Elegant Economist by Eliza Acton, 1845

The Chef at War by Alexis Soyer, 1857

The Campaign for Domestic Happiness by Isabella Beeton, 1861

From Absinthe to Zest by Alexandre Dumas, 1873

Notes from Madras by Colonel Wyvern, 1878

Buffalo Cake and Indian Pudding by Dr. A.W. Chase, 1887

A Dissertation Upon Roasting a Pig and Other Essays by Charles Lamb, 1888(?)

I've already got one book under my belt (out of order but that's
okay...the urge had to start somewhere). I'm really looking forward to
this--I think it'll be great fun, and I'll be sharing as I read. First
up is Gervase Markham's The Well-Kept Kitchen. I'll be transporting myself back to 1615 and will let you know soon what I discover there!

I really love learning about history, and one of my favorite periods (as regular readers will know) that I enjoy reading about is the interwar years--just after the end of WWI and the before start of WWII. Historical fiction is one way to learn a little about history in an easy and painless manner (or at least being a jumping off place to learn something new), but you can't beat books that deal with social history to give you an idea of how people really lived and what they thought--my favorites being anecdotal or narrative types of writing.

What about learning about history via cookery books? An entirely different sort of history but none the less fascinating and in some ways more so. Certainly you can't question the authenticity of someone living in England in 1922 and writing from the immediacy of the moment. Here's the world of (in some cases anyway) women and the domestic sphere, yet books like Agnes Jekyll's A Little Dinner Before the Play look out on to the broader world as well.

The book is made up of essays originally published in The Times in the early 1920s and she writes in an intimate and cozy manner about a world long since vanished. Lady Agnes Jekyll, a celebrated hostess, was the sister-in-law of Gertrude Jekyll the famous English garden designer. Anyone who can claim as guests to her first dinner party the likes of Robert Browning, John Ruskin, and Edward Burne-Jones, surely knows well of what she writes. I think I would have taken her advice, though she was definitely writing from a certain social strata in which I doubt I would have been living. Of course it's this strata that I find endlessly (though not exclusively) interesting to read about--the sort of people who might still have servants, have active social lives--plays, dinner parties, weekend shooting parties, holidays in Tuscany and the like, and entrée into homes and places not open perhaps to the rest of the world. Should note here--don't think I'm snobbish in liking to read about the 'upstairs' sort of folk--only it's a world quite unlike my own and so am curious about it, though I find the 'downstairs' world immensely interesting, too.

Although the War would have been several years past the effects of it can still be felt as Jekyll alludes to it albeit somewhat indirectly. I imagine her world to be elegant and full of opportunities. She might have entertained artists and politicians and blue-blood Society matrons. In her world a meal was something that might be lavish and would certainly have been well thought out and presented with an eye towards sophistication and taste. But as a good hostess she would also know her "audience". And there are, too, the glimmers of a changing world in her writing.

Once again my copy is dog eared since there were so many interesting bits I wanted to go back to and share. Just as the times were changing socially, so, too was the food that was being eaten.

"A Salad Course as habitually given now at American luncheon parties might furnish a pleasing variety from established usage, and for the central dish a large green bowl containing a mixture of green or sugar corn of the largest shelled variety (as sold in tins by American grocery importers), freshened and flavoured with a little whipped cream, pepper, and red celery salt, and surrounded by pieces of white endive lubricated with oil and vinegar."

In the same essay, "A Little Dinner Before the Play", she plans her meal down to the last desire of her guests.

"There should still be time for a perfect cup of coffee and a possible liqueur, and, most desired of all by many, for a good smoke, without which there will be no social fire. Warmed thus and fed, the play-goers will be attuned to enjoyment and ready to appreciate each other, their dinner, their play, and their hostess, 'and to bed with great contentment'."

Oh, my, how times have changed. A little dinner before the play these days would like take place in a good restaurant, which is likely now smoke free!

Next time I'm ill I want someone to lavish the same sort of attention on me as Jekyll advises her readers to do. My tray meal has never consisted of "lustre ware of both silver and gold" to give a bit of brightness to the tea or breakfast sets. As a matter of fact I don't think I've ever had the benefit of a tray meal (sick or otherwise).

"Remember that the whole tone of the day can be set into a happy major key instead of into a mournful minor one by the mere aspect of the breakfast tray. A cheerful cherry - glacé or fresh - will render irresistible the skilfully-prepared and iced grape fruit on a hot day, a seedless orange halved and treated in the same way, beautified by green leaves of its own, or the nearest resembling foliage (and even villa gardens can boast a laurustinus bush); a gay-pottery saucer of thin slices of banana with brown sugar and cream, a slice of melon, a tiny bunch of grapes, summer fruits in their seasons, and the health-giving apple accompanied by its ingenious little plated corer and wooden platter--all these may render nourishment welcome. A bunch of violets or primroses, a single rose, a sprig of heather, a spray of lemon verbena would bring a reminder of fresh life and loveliness from the outdoor world."

Spoiled with a tray like that I am sure I'd feel immeasurably better in no time.

One of my favorite essays was "Food for Travellers". In this case the travellers are going by train, which I have always found to be a hugely romantic way of travelling (and living in the US, something we simply don't do here--hence the attractiveness I'm sure). Now travellers in Jekyll's day were off to the sunny Riviera or somewhere cold for skiing, or perhaps a little gambling in Monte Carlo. Adequate provision in the form of a picnic basket was a necessity. Not having very sophisticated tastes I have to say I would have preferred the children's basket over that of the adults. I'm afraid home-made foie gras just doesn't hold the appeal for me, though the sandwiches of thinnest gruyère between biscuits sound pretty good. For the children:

"Sandwiches of fruit for the children are popular. Round slices of banana sprinkled with orange juice and white centrifugal sugar, or of thinly-cut apple with grated walnuts, sandwiches of cream cheese with a thin spread of currant jelly, of egg with sardine or anchovy, of celery shredded and creamed and sprinkled with plentiful yolk of hard-boiled egg, sandwiches of sponge-cake spread with chocolate or coffee icing, sandwiches of pastry with jam or glazed with thin caramel."

Okay, maybe I would also pass on the sardines! I wonder what kind of bread she would have used? One thing that I found interesting reading these essays and the accompanying recipes was the way they are presented. Her recipes wouldn't have been for the novice. A certain amount of cooking knowledge would have been necessary I think, as she assumes the reader will already know how to prepare certain dishes, and the directions aren't always all that explicit. I'll leave you with one recipe, and I wonder if you can guess what it will be? Not braised sheep's tongue I assure you.

Now that I have the whole set of these Penguin Great Food books, I think I need to make them into a reading project (the first of several I've got in mind--expect some changes in my tabbed area at the top of my page here). I plan on reading all 20 volumes, though I am in no rush to get through them. They are quite short-less than 150 pages or so and it would be easy to read one or two a month and try and finish sometime before the end of next year. Now I just need to decide whether to read at random or put the books in order by period they were written. It would be interesting to see how cooking and tastes have changed over time, but then reading at whim is nice as well. It would be fun, too to try and make at least one dish from each book, though I'm not so sure I will be so faring--will have to think on that aspect of the project. In any case I'll be deciding soon as I am ready now to pick up another book and hope it will be equally as charming and delightful to read as the Jekyll was.

Okay. So this is really dorky to share this, but as you were all so very helpful with my oatmeal cooking debacle I thought I'd let you know how I was getting on. I've been using your advice and trying various methods to make my morning bowl of delicious oatmeal, and today's was the best bowl yet. It was so yummy I had to share.

I've been cooking it on the stove since I am making it on weekends mostly. I only use a (heaping) quarter cup of oatmeal (because I want to enjoy a slice of toast, too), and find that a full cup of water and a dash of salt makes it just the right consistency for me. So far, so good. I decided to keep it really simple. Then I added a little less than a teaspoon of flaxseed at the very end of the five minutes of cooking time. I just bought a bottle of Lemon Creamed Honey (made locally) at a farmer's market not far from my house, so a dollop of that went on top. Then a handful of blueberries and a few shakes of cinnamon and voilà, my own very simple and perfect bowl of oatmeal. I do plan on continuing to try out the variations suggested, however. The lemon honey is so good and gives it just the right amount of kick. I also indulged in a jar of Ginger Creamed Honey (I may have to try that on my next bowl of oatmeal), and the Pumpkin Butter went onto my slice of pumpkin spice swirl bread!

Thanks for all the help. I think I have finally got the basics down and will have fun experimenting with other flavors and add-ins now. Hmm. What should my next cooking project be? (Yes . . . I know. Oatmeal?! Can you tell I lead a simple life.).

Today, a few books I'm thinking about, a few I'm reading, and a few more I'm thinking about reading. A post in photos, if you will.

First.

Ooohh, so pretty, don't you think? I indulged (in a big way) and ordered the complete set of Penguin's The Great Food Series of books. I had one on my bookshelves and had read it, loved it, and decided I needed to own (and read) them all. So I splurged, but I bought a 'new' used set (sans the box so it was much cheaper than buying them all brand new). More about what I just read later (and what I'm going to read next).

I'm so taken with these lovely little books, let me share another photo.

I just started reading Mary Stewart's Touch Not the Cat for Cornflower's Book Group and am quite enjoying it. It's unlike the other books I've read by her but unlike in a good way. Maybe because the setting is England rather than Greece or somewhere else exotic? There is also the touch of the supernatural about it. Bryony Ashley is the heroine and as per Stewart's heroine's she's smart and independent and very likable.

Criminy but Ann-Marie MacDonald knows how to tell a good (and I mean good) story. 800 pages you may think? Trust me, you don't even feel it. You welcome it. It is excruciatingly good. I know that sounds a little oxymoronish, but it's accurate--that's exactly how I am feeling at the moment. More about this one later.

I am such a pushover when it comes to books. Talk about one in a tantalizing way and I want to read it, too. You probably already know that about me, though, right? I belong to an online reading group (à la Yahoo Groups) and they often do readalongs, and tempted though I might be, I usually refrain. Lately every book they mention sounds so appealing, that I broke down and decided I needed to read Dorothy Canfield Fisher's The Home-Maker. The idea behind the group (at least when it first formed) was to read from the Persephone Books list, but as I don't have this in the lovely Persephone edition, and my library has the 1924 edition, it will work just as well. I've heard many good things about it, and just a few chapters in, I think I will have to concur.

I'm zipping through Joanne Harris's The Girl with No Shadows, or as it was published in the UK The Lollipop Shoes. It's a sequel to Chocolat (if you click on the link you can see the reissue of this book with its new cover design--I like it very much). Chocolat is one of my all-time favorite books. As you can see I had to have the book when it first came out. I started it, then it was set aside and not picked up for years. This year I decided it was time to read it finally but it had been languishing on my reading pile once again (not due to the story but the fact that I don't like carrying hardcovers around with me if possible), and was in danger of getting reshuffled back into the 'for later' book pile when I realized my turn had come up for her newest book, Peaches for Father Francis (which I just picked up from the library last night). So it was press on and read it or get out of line for the new book and just set them both aside for later. I'm glad I pressed on. It's a darker than Chocolat, but still has a wonderfully magical quality to it. More bittersweet than milk chocolate? Well, I'm two thirds of the way through and should finish in just a couple of days, so we'll see.

And one more. This is the one I'm 'thinking about'. I know lots of people read Erin Mordenstern's The Night Circus when it was first released, and I admit that I was smitten with the cover illustration and had to have the UK edition (I know, I am shallow that way). I'm on Pinterest (and if you are too and I am not following you, let me know and I'll rectify that), and while I've not been updating my boards lately (it can be strangely addictive and I have to be careful or hours will pass messing about with them), I do get emails letting me know when something on my own boards has been 'repinned'. Guess what book seems to be a hot repin for me? Yup, The Night Circus. I feel as though someone is trying to tell me something. So I finally slipped my copy from its place in the pile and have moved it to my bedside. Not sure if I'll just dive in or talk myself into waiting, but I'm at least contemplating it. It would be a good fit for RIP, right? And a nice magical sort of companion book to go along with Joanne Harris. So what am I waiting for?

As usual, I am dipping into a (ahem) few other books, but these are the highlights--the books I seem to be reaching for most often this week.

Now here's something you probably don't expect to find when you drop by . . . Oatmeal? Old fashioned Quaker Oats to be exact. And in the place of my regularly scheduled mythology post no less. I'm afraid my reading this weekend took me other places than the House of Atreus, so more about that next weekend.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but I have never made oatmeal. I love oatmeal, but I buy those instant packets that you just add hot water to and voila, ready to go. Now I realize those are not as nutritious as the real thing, but they are quick and reasonably filling. I only have about ten minutes to eat in the morning before I dash off to the bus stop, so it works in a pinch. However, I am trying hard to be more healthy and cut out as much sugar and salt and processed food as I can from my diet.

In the last year and a half I've lost all the weight and then some that I gained from high school on--you know how it can creep up on you over the years? When my jeans became too tight and I couldn't fit into the size I had been wearing, I was sufficiently freaked out to make serious changes to my eating habits and now wear jeans two sizes smaller. Of course losing the weight is only half the battle and now I am in maintenance mode, which is still quite a lot work.

So this weekend when I spotted this ultra large container of oatmeal on sale I thought it seemed not only economical but also much healthier to eat my oatmeal the natural way. Okay, I made a bowl yesterday and have to say it was a disaster. I am not very proficient in the kitchen--I have a set repertoire of things I can cook and stick to them, but now that I've made dietary changes I need to branch out. I followed the instructions on the box, mixed the oatmeal with water in a microwave-safe bowl, set the timer and let it cook. Opened the microwave, and oops, the bowl overflowed and made a sticky mess. Second go--put it all in a larger bowl and watched it so it wouldn't overflow. Tasted it and discovered it was quite tasteless and a very different texture than what I am used to. I really shouldn't reveal this about myself, should I? But it's better to laugh at these little failings and try and correct them right?

So my question is (to those of you who are oatmeal-fans)--what is your recipe to make a perfect bowl of oatmeal. I keep a food diary of sorts and try and track my calories keeping a tight rein on it all. This doesn't mean I don't splurge occasionally, but I just try and be careful to keep portion sizes normal. I do like to add fruit and nuts to my oatmeal, but I am not a fan of milk in general. So any hints on how to make a good, healthy and satisfying bowl of oatmeal would be much appreciated. Otherwise I'm going to have to make an awful lot of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to use up all these oats! I'd invite you all over to share them, but you probably don't trust my culinary skills now (sadly I am very good at baking--probably what got me into this weight mess to begin with).

By the way I spent part of my weekend reading-time with these magazines--see, I'm trying to educate myself along the way, too. I think no one tells you how to make a good bowl of oatmeal as it's assumed everyone knows how and besides, the instructions are so simple on the canister (but they don't warn you about choosing a big bowl to avoid volcano-like eruptions!).

M.F.K. Fisher's The Gastronomical Me is something of a hybrid of a book. It's part memoir and part travelogue, though not wholly either, and with food at its heart. It is a series of essays presented mostly chronologically that shows the making of a true gourmand, which is what Fisher was. Her writing is exquisite and sensual and often very witty. I felt a little bit of a fraud reading it, since my idea of a delicious meal in no way mirrored Fisher's experiences, but it was still a delight to read even if I am something of a philistine when it comes to eating.

My first encounter with Fisher came a few years ago when I read one of her essays in Philip Lopate's The Art of the Personal Essay. I knew I was on to something good and now I'm sure of it. So sure I've been acquiring her memoirs and essay collections and hope to add her diaries to my pile soon, too. I've heard The Gastronomical Me is one of, maybe even her best, book, but with some authors even a so-so book is head and shoulders above the rest, so I'm going to keep reading.

The world she lived in and wrote about has changed and disappeared, but it's one I seem able to read about endlessly. First published in 1943 when she was only 35 the book is made up of loosely connected essays from her childhood in California to her marriage and the years they lived in Dijon (the gourmet capital of France?) and on to her life after her divorce. She doesn't reveal everything, as a matter of fact much of her life is quite subtly presented making me as curious about what she doesn't write about as about what she does. Her essays criss cross the ocean as she travels by ship, living mostly in France and Switzerland until the war comes and changes everything.

Each essay is dated beginning in 1912 with her first food memory and following through to 1941 covering various milestones of her life--people and places as they're associated with her experiences with food.

"The first thing I remember tasting and then wanting to taste again is the grayish-pink fuzz my grandmother skimmed from a spitting kettle of strawberry jam. I suppose I was about four."

Her grandmother had a lot of food issues, so she was expected to eat and mostly served a bland diet.

"My grandmother, who oddly seems to have been connected with whatever infantine gastronomy I knew, spent the last thirty years of her life dying of some obscure internal ailment until a paralytic stroke finished her in four days. She was a vigorous woman, tight with repressed emotions, and probably had a 'nervous stomach.' She spent a lot of time in sanatoria, often genuinely ill, and when she was with us, we had to follow her dietary rules, probably to our benefit: no fried things or pastries, no oils, no seasonings."

But there were moments of inspiration, which probably set her off on the track she was to follow in life.

"Ora was a spare gray-haired woman, who kept herself to herself in a firm containment. She took her afternoons and Sundays off without incident or comment, and kept her small hot room as near as her person. The rest of her time she spent in a kind of ecstasy in the kitchen."

"She loved to cook, the way some people love to pray, or dance, or fight. She preferred to be let alone, even for the ordering of food, and made it clear that meals were her business. they were among the best I have ever eaten . . . all the things we had always accepted as food, but presented in ways that baffled and delighted us."

"Grandmother hated her. I don't know any real reasons, of course, after such a long time, but I think it was because Ora was not like the friendly stupid hired girls she thought were proper for middle-class kitchens. And then Ora did things to 'plain good food' that made it exciting and new and delightful, which my grandmother's stern asceticism meant that Ora was wrong."

*****

"My little sister Anne and I had come in Ora's few weeks with us to watch every plate she served, and to speculate with excitement on what it would taste like. 'Oh, Mother,' we would exclaim in a kind of anguish of delight. 'There are little stars, all made of pie crust! They have seeds on them! Oh, how beautiful! How good!'"

I especially loved reading the parts about Dijon in the 1930s when she and her first husband were living there, he as a student and she as a careful observer of French society. Over time they became part of the community. Fisher conveys the feeling that the people of Dijon are serious about their cooking and meals and once it was accepted that the Fishers were just as sophisticated, they were invited to join in and invited out.

"Probably the most orgiastic eating we did while we lived there was with teh Club Alpin. Monsieur Biarnet proposed us for membership soon after he had decided for himself, over the dinner table in his stuffy little dining room, that we were amusing and moderately civilized. It was supposed to be an honor, as well as making it possible for the club to get better rates on its feasts by having a larger number of members, and certainly it was a fine although somewhat wearing experience for us."

Although the reason for the club is ostensibly to travel around the region to walk and hike, more time was spent exploring the restaurants and eating. She writes about the lengthy meals including one on Ascension Day, which lasted a full six hours. Imagine.

She only hints at some of the personal things that were going on in her life. The essays creat a mosaic of her life and the reader is left to infer from what she does write about, a little of what she has also left out. It's a style that works for me. I feel like I know Fisher just a little bit, even if all the details haven't been filled in. That'll come later as I read more.

"It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about the love and the hunger for it, and the warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it . . . and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied . . . and it is all one."

A book like Paris My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light (And Dark Chocolate) by Amy Thomas should really come packaged with a box of the chocolates (or other confections) that she writes about. This is not a book you want to pick up on an empty stomach, as reading about such delights as macarons or pain au chocolat knowing you can't just go out and buy some for yourself is almost cruel. Then again, just reading about French chocolates and pastries and other glorious desserts (and bread!) is calorie free, so there is no guilt associated with reading rather than eating. Is there such a thing as a food memoir? If so, this is one. Thomas weaves together her experiences as an American expat in Paris with her love of chocolate and all things sweet. The result is as light and fluffy as some of the confections she describes.

Thomas was in an enviable position when in 2008 she was working in a New York advertising agency and was offered the plum job of writing copy for their Louis Vuitton account, which included a move to Paris. She had already had a long standing love affair with the city since her college days when she studied abroad and then only a few months prior to the offer had spent a summer vacation there. She called it her Tour du Chocolat and wrote about it for the New York Times. A week spent visiting the various chocolatiers and 'Vélib'ing' about wasn't enough to satiate her desire for the decadent city, so she left behind her comfortable NYC situation, friends and family and embarked on a journey of self-discovery and all things sweet.

In each chapter Thomas takes the reader with her as she sets out to discover and sample the best that Paris has to offer. Starting with her Tour du Chocolat and ending with Pain Perdu she visits pâtisseries, chats with chefs, shares a little history and writes about her experiences living and working in Paris often contrasting it with her life in New York City. At the time Thomas was a thirty-something singleton with high expectations and hopes of fitting in with her French colleagues and perhaps finding love and happiness. She quickly discovered how difficult it was to find her niche amongst the close knit French community that she was a part of. Dating was often a nightmare and work challenging with a clash of cultures. And then there was the language, which she felt she should have a better grasp of, but which continued to occasionally be perplexing.

There are lots of interesting bits about what it's like to be an American expat in Paris and what perceptions she had about France and French people and then the inevitable reality, which ended up so often being different. Still, when Thomas would return home for visits she knew she knew she was falling in love with Paris, even if she wasn't necessarily falling in love otherwise. While her friends were moving on in their lives and pairing up she was taking a different path filled with uncertainty. There's a certain amount of introspection in the book, but not always a lot of depth, which I would have enjoyed a little more of, but that's a small quibble for all the other delights she writes about. Thomas is, however, a likable narrator and it's hard not to enjoy her chatty, gossipy writing style.

If you're a chocolate, or sweets in general, aficionado, this is a fun read and is very much a tour of all things delicious á la Paris and NYC. There's lots of name dropping in terms of places to find the best of the best from everything from cupcakes to madeleines and on both sides of the Atlantic.

"These shell-shaped teacakes (madeleines)from the town of Commercy in northeastern France date back to the eighteenth century. Made with génoise batter, which relies heavily on eggs, the edges bake to a dark golden color while the rest of the cake remains a sunny yellow."

The best in Paris? Blé Sucré, Fabrice Le Bourdet's pâtisserie on Square Trousseau. It's obvious that Thomas knows her stuff. When she calls herself a "girl obsessed with sweets", she's not kidding. There are also copious lists with addresses, phone numbers and websites should you want to try some of the sweets she writes about. This is a book you could take with you for a sweet hop in either Paris or NYC I would imagine. I wonder if any of them deliver?

Do check out Amy Thomas's long running blog, Sweet Freak, in case you need visuals to tempt you. If you're looking for a companion read consider Chocolat by Joanne Harris, one of my all time favorite books. Thanks to Sourcebooks for sending this book my way.